American Smarties: The Complete Guide to the Candy Roll That Shares a Name with British Chocolate

Two products, one name, zero similarity. American Smarties are small, tangy pressed-sugar tablet rolls — pastel-coloured, fruit-flavoured, slightly chalky, individually wrapped in a twist of clear cellophane. British Smarties are chocolate buttons in a cardboard tube with a plastic lid that used to contain a letter of the alphabet. They share a name and absolutely nothing else: different country of origin, different manufacturer, different ingredients, different format, different flavour, different history.

The confusion has existed since 1949, when an Englishman named Edward Dee arrived in New Jersey with two candy machines, a rented factory, and the intention to make pressed-sugar tablets that he would sell to American corner shops. He called his candy Smarties. He hadn't heard of the British ones. He'd been living in New Jersey for six months. The name, Dee said later, was chosen to encourage children to pursue education. It was a good name. It stuck. And it has been causing transatlantic confusion ever since.

The Englishman Who Built America's Halloween Candy

Edward Dee was born in London on 2 October 1924 into a family of confectioners. His grandfather and father had both worked in the British sweet trade. He graduated from Cambridge University, served during the Second World War, and emigrated to the United States with his wife Anita and their son Jonathan on 10 January 1949. He was twenty-four years old.

In August 1949, Dee founded Ce De Candy, Inc. in a rented facility in Bloomfield, New Jersey. His equipment consisted of two machines: one tablet presser — repurposed from a pellet-making operation — and one wrapping machine. His workforce was five people. His sales strategy was straightforward. He drove his car to small grocery stores and tobacco shops across New Jersey and sold the rolls himself, one account at a time.

The candy he was making had precedents in both the American and British traditions. Pressed-sugar tablets had been popular in Britain since the Victorian era — Refreshers, Love Hearts, Parma Violets — and American confectioners had been producing similar formats since the early 20th century. What Dee did was refine the formula, nail the packaging, and find a name that communicated both the product's colourful character and his belief that eating sweets and being clever were not incompatible.

The company grew steadily through the 1950s and 1960s. By 1959 it had outgrown Bloomfield and moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey. By 1967 it had moved again, to Union, New Jersey, where it remains today. In 1963, Dee opened a second factory in Toronto, Canada — and ran into the name problem immediately. In Canada, Nestlé's chocolate Smarties were already well-established. Dee could not use the Smarties name. So his Canadian factory produces exactly the same candy under a different name: Rockets. The Canadian Rockets and the American Smarties are the same product. The name is the only difference.

National Smarties Day: Why 2 October

National Smarties Day was established by the Smarties Candy Company in 2022, the year of the company's 73rd anniversary. The date chosen was 2 October — Edward Dee's birthday. Dee had died in November 2019 at the age of 95, having come into the office on the morning of the day he passed away. His three granddaughters — Sarah Dee, Jessica Dee Sawyer, and Liz Dee — now run the company as co-presidents, making Smarties one of very few large American candy companies still owned and operated by the family that founded it.

The day was chosen to celebrate both the candy and its founder's original philosophy. Dee named the candy Smarties because he wanted to encourage children to value education. The company's Smarties Think initiative, launched in 2013 in partnership with DonorsChoose, has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to classrooms across the United States. The idea that a candy roll named for being clever should fund actual classrooms is the kind of founding-principle-made-literal that doesn't happen often in confectionery history.

What American Smarties Actually Are

American Smarties are small, round, pressed-sugar tablet candies, approximately 1cm in diameter, produced in six fruit flavours: orange cream, pineapple, cherry, strawberry, grape, and orange. Each roll contains approximately 15 tablets. The outer wrapper is clear cellophane, twisted at both ends, with the Smarties name printed in the brand's distinctive blue and pink.

The flavour profile is tangy and sweet simultaneously — a citric acid sourness that tempers the sugar and prevents the tablets from being cloying. The texture is slightly chalky and dissolves relatively quickly on the tongue. The experience is not dissimilar to British Refreshers, or to the Love Hearts format, though the American Smarties have a more pronounced fruit character. They are not mint-flavoured, not chocolate-coated, not filled with anything. They are exactly what they appear to be: small, bright, tangy sugar tablets in a roll.

The formula has been essentially unchanged for 76 years. The granddaughters who now run the company have noted in interviews that the experience their grandparents had eating Smarties is the same as the experience customers have today. For a confectionery product to maintain an unchanged formula across three generations and 76 years is genuinely unusual — it speaks to a recipe that was right from the beginning.

The Range at Sweet and Glory

Original Candy Rolls

The Classic Smarties Candy Rolls in the bulk formats are the backbone of the Sweet and Glory Smarties range — available in bulk cases of 4.54kg and 17.4kg, suitable for pick and mix displays, scoop bins, and any retailer who wants to offer American Smarties by weight. The Theatre Box (99g) brings the same rolls into the branded American cinema-concession box format — the unified rectangular shape sits naturally alongside other theatre box products in a display.

X-Treme Sour

The X-Treme Sour Smarties Candy Rolls are the sour candy extension of the original — the same pressed-sugar tablet format but with a significantly more intense citric acid coating that delivers a proper sour hit before the fruit flavour underneath. Available in an 18kg bulk format, the X-Treme Sour rolls perform particularly well in pick and mix displays alongside other sour candy lines. The format differentiates them clearly from the original within the same display — same shape, same packaging structure, bolder taste.

Tropical

The Tropical Smarties Candy Rolls bring a different flavour profile to the range — tropical fruit varieties replacing the standard orange/grape/cherry mix. Available in a 17.4kg bulk format. The Tropical rolls appeal to customers who want something slightly different from the classic fruit flavours and work well as a complement to the Original rolls in a pick and mix display.

Smarties Squashies

The Smarties Squashies (142g) bring the Smarties brand into the soft gummy format — fruit-flavoured, squashy, and bearing the brand name rather than the pressed-sugar tablet form. A broader appeal product for customers who prefer a chewy texture to a tablet.

Smarties Money and Love Hearts

The Smarties Candy Money (18.14kg bulk) is the novelty format — the same candy in coin shapes, suitable for themed displays and pick and mix. The Smarties Love Hearts (198g) is the crossover format that nudges into the British confectionery tradition — the Love Hearts format with the Smarties branding. The Smarties Pouch (9.4kg) is the larger loose format for high-volume pick and mix operations.

American Smarties vs British Smarties: The Confusion Explained

The two products have been causing confusion in international sweet shops for as long as both have been widely distributed outside their home markets. A brief guide to the key differences:

Origin. American Smarties: founded 1949 in New Jersey by an Englishman. British Smarties: created 1937 in London by Rowntree's, now owned by Nestlé.

What they are. American Smarties: pressed-sugar tablets, fruit-flavoured, slightly tangy, no chocolate. British Smarties: milk chocolate buttons in a sugar shell, similar in concept to M&Ms but British.

Format. American Smarties: cylindrical roll, 15 tablets per roll, clear cellophane wrapper. British Smarties: cardboard tube, hexagonal cross-section, traditionally with a plastic lid that once contained a letter of the alphabet.

Taste. American Smarties: tangy, fruity, slightly chalky, reminiscent of Refreshers or Fizzers. British Smarties: sweet milk chocolate with a thin, slightly crunchy sugar shell.

Canada. The American Smarties are sold in Canada under the name Rockets to avoid confusion with the Nestlé product. The same company, the same candy, a different name on the wrapper.

For a broader look at how American and British confectionery compare, see our American sweets vs British sweets guide.

Halloween: The Biggest Day in the Smarties Calendar

In America, Smarties are one of the defining Halloween candies. The individually wrapped rolls are the perfect trick-or-treat format — small, cheap per unit, instantly recognisable, individually sealed, and universally acceptable. A 1952 New York Times article on the Smarties company described them as 'a Halloween favourite', and that association has only deepened in the 70-plus years since. Over 2.5 billion rolls are produced each year from the two factories in New Jersey and Ontario, and a significant proportion of that volume is consumed in the weeks around Halloween.

For UK retailers, the American Smarties Halloween opportunity is distinct from the UK Halloween confectionery market. The bulk roll format, the pick and mix potential, and the American cultural association make Smarties a natural addition to any Halloween display built around American candy. For the full Halloween stocking guide, see our Halloween stocking guide.

Browse American Smarties Wholesale

The full American Smarties range is available wholesale at Sweet and Glory. Browse the Smarties brand page for current availability, or the full candy range for the complete American sweet selection.

No minimum order. Free first parcel on orders over £150 ex VAT (additional boxes £7.10 each). Free pallet delivery over £650 ex VAT. Dispatched from Manchester. Create a free account to browse and order, or contact us for range advice.

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